BYD sales soar as Tesla continues to struggle in Europe | Hacker News Reader

BYD sales soar as Tesla continues to struggle in Europe

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55 pointsvinni242 comments

Before replying too quickly to the headline, please note that it's another case of "bad headline-itis" that is conflating two things that the article DOESN'T say.

(1) Tesla sales have crashed in Europe.

(2) BYD sales are up globally, with the largest gain in China. Most of those sales are not in the EU; the EU has imposed high tariffs on Chinese autos.

These two statements are operating independently of each other; it is not the case that BYD sales are what have caused Tesla to crash in Europe, and this is not what the article says. However, the headline puts these two facts in close juxtaposition, inviting an incorrect conclusion on quick skim. Grr, headline writer, grr.

Drawing from other sources, BYD sold only about 83,000 cars in the EU in 2024, though they are projecting to double that in 2025. So it may be that BYD will be part of _future_ Tesla sales drops, but these are likely due to price/quality more than politics.

(Re-posting this at the top level because the comment I replied to got flagged)

No mystery. They're cheaper, they don't come with Musk's politics, nor his dumb decisions (no rain sensor, no stalks etc.).

Giant glass roof with no internal cover is the worst design decision. In Australia it's unbearable on the hottest days. We bought one of their clip on roof shades, but the clips grtadually broke or got lost.

Musk's policies are just a small part of the problem. The novelty has worn off, reliability metrics have arrived (last place in the EV category), and service horror stories are common. Chinese companies have started a wide campaign, but I still see more Teslas than Chinese no-names. People don't trust that they will remain on the market and believe they will disappear sooner or later. In the case of a company car fleet, it is advised to buy a single Chinese car just to test the waters. Skoda, VW, and Toyotas rule.

> Chinese no-names

Sorry, but that's just short sighted. Did you actually sit in a Chinese car, or at least seen any with your own eyes? I can tell you that ZEEKR, Changan, Exeed, Li Auto, BYD, Jac and others are well known and well respected in certain markets. In our harsh and cold climate, Chinese brands don't seem to be any less reliable than the Japanese, Korean and European brands that were historically used here.

Do they come with Chinese politics?

Yeah kind of. People are pretty used to buying stuff from China at this point so it's probably not as much of a driver. It's not recent history.

Still I think people would prefer Western made electric cars if they were competitive with Chinese ones.

Yes. But that still seems more palatable. Go figure.

For better or worse; that is the current perception.

I'm going to watch with interest how long Tesla can flight gravity.

Tesla will probably be kicked out of China by the local brands. Chinese brands are hyper competitive and either make their own batteries or have strong partnerships with Chinese battery giants. Their software stacks are frequently good and the manufacturing quality can be really good (to no one's surprise, China makes half of what the world uses).

Tesla will probably be kicked out of Europe by Chinese and European brands. Even the European brands are starting to slowly launch cheaper models where Tesla isn't going. I doubt Tesla will launch a sub 20k€ car soon (or ever).

That basically leaves only the US as a big market. I doubt that's enough to sustain a trillion dollar valuation.

Note: I don't believe in Tesla robotaxis or robots doing anything economically relevant within the next 10 years.

I don't know much about BYD cars but from what I can tell they sound to just be better cars than what Tesla puts out.

They also have a much broader range of vehicles than Tesla. Even if they could, they’d never sell a BYD Seagull in the USA, but small cheap cars are still a huge market in Asia and Europe.

I hate how hard it is to get a small car in the US. I grew up driving a Geo Metro and would love to get a car in that size today but the options are very limited.

Get a Corolla or Mini Cooper. The truth is people in US are not buying small cars, demand is low.

We have a corolla and it is bigger than we need. I wish smart cars had been popular enough to still be on sale. Honestly, we should probably just get rid of our car.

Recently in europe on vacation I noticed the the majority of electric cars were VW ID models then Tesla. I did manage to see two BYD vehicles.

Yeah, they’re kind of conflating two things. BYD is way up globally, Tesla is way down in Europe. But that doesn’t mean that BYD is taking over Europe; the European market is increasingly dominated by VW AG and BMW.

It’s also kind of regional; if you’d visited Ireland, say, you’d probably assume Hyundai was either the largest or second-largest, but Europe-wide it’s not that big. There are European markets (notably the UK, which still ends up in many European stats for this) where BYD is a big deal.

>BYD is way up globally

Way more up on plugins than BEV, though.

EV popularity varies a lot from country to country.

Stockholm is jokingly referred to as Teslatown these days.

In the UK it’s pretty mixed between Tesla, VW, Kia, BYD, and BMW.

France like their Peugeots …

In Italy last year I saw one EV in the whole time I was there … (although it’s supposedly 5% of new car sales)

According to this site, which claims to be tracking European EV registrations, you'd expect to see VW, but BYD isn't in the top 8.

Tesla is so low for this quarter I suspect the data isn't yet there.

https://eu-evs.com/marketShare/ALL/Brands/Bar/All-time-by-Qu...

Edit: Yes, I think this site isn't ready for Q1 2025. Look back in a few days maybe.

There a few European countries that publish daily details cars registration numbers. Here's Tesla in Norway: https://eu-evs.com/brands/TESLA/NO/Models-Daily

Looks like delivery of their most popular model took off once they've finished retooling the production lines (March 11).

They seem to prioritize specific countries, NO being the first maybe?

The big question now is: how long would it take to compensate for the weeks with near zero deliveries at the start of Q1?

Actual link: https://www.ft.com/content/c97bd5e4-4eaa-4850-b94c-583fa5442...

Archive links in comments please: https://archive.is/6tgod

non archive.is link: https://www.ft.com/content/c97bd5e4-4eaa-4850-b94c-583fa5442...

Why would BYD sell better than Nissan Leaf? I mean, iPhone revolutionized phone, because it had fewer parts and offered massively better experiences.

I don't see how that would be the case with Chinese EVs, or Tesla, even.

A comparable BYD is about 20% cheaper than the Leaf in Australia. And that is after the Leaf's recent price drop attempting to close the gap.

While the BYD offering looks attractive on the surface, it doesn't make sense for the Europeans to eagerly start adopting Chinese brands instead of American brands. Any country one becomes overly dependent on is a threat to one's sovereignty. The lesson has to be learnt from this change in American politics.

Not sure you are aware, but there are quite a few European car brands.

They might be relatively unknown to you, but they absolutely exist, I'll let you know.

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